I have this really big single-pane window in my office. Right outside of it is the landscaping for the front of the house and a view of the street. In the right, one-third of the window is a, now, two-year-old crepe myrtle tree and, this time of year, it doesn’t have a lot of leaves on it. The branches are rather flexible and, when the wind blows, they sway fairly poetically in my peripheral view.

Today, in the midst of wrangling a spreadsheet with far too many tiny numbers, I noticed the branches moving, but also a spot of blue. There were a few blue jays bouncing around trying to score some sort of remaining bounty from the morning rain (and ungodly humidity).

The blue jay was more interesting than the spreadsheet. I started to wonder how hard it was to be a bird. I mean, it seems like a simple life: wake up, find food, make sure you have a place to sleep and maybe stay out of the rain, fly around a bit, try not to die by car or electrical line, or errant piece of rice.

Do birds get stressed about this list? Like, is there a worm shortage? I can’t imagine there are GMO worms or housing construction permits to worry about for the nests, but maybe there is some sort of Blue Jay Council that oversees such things.

Seems like parenting is pretty straight-forward, too. I’ll bring you food, tiny birds, you eat and grow, and then you either fly, or don’t fly, but either way you’re getting out of this nest.

Think about it – no social media, no politics, no financial stress (unless there is some sort of bird monetary system we haven’t yet uncovered, and then I’m going to need to see how those loans get underwritten, man), no awards show seasons, no crappy Super Bowl commercials, no Spanx, no in-laws, no kale or calories, no paper cuts and no laundry.

I think, some days, it might be nice to be a blue jay – if only for the simplicity. The being able to fly – or fly away – thing seems pretty handy, too, but I think the simple part is more interesting.

Problem is, about 20 minutes later, one of these blue jays came crashing into my window either by wind gust or by sheer idiocy and now my whole theory is blown to shreds.

In trying to tiptoe back to into writing more regularly, a whole blog post seemed pretty overwhelming. I’d noticed a little mini-trend flying around where people were using images to spark a small creative piece or story. That seemed doable, if a bit unnerving, but one day I stumbled across a few bedroom pictures on Pinterest, and decided there are great stories in there somewhere. Maybe I could find a few?

And, so, I have been. Quietly. If you’d like to see them, or follow along a bit, they live on Instagram for now under the hashtag #bedunrest. I’m trying to do one a week.

I’m stumbling through it, but there is something interesting about thinking through the fantasy of this kind of project, and we all need a bit of a mental stretch every now and then, right?

I’ve been thinking lately about the old Polaroid cameras and film. Well, actually, that’s not true. I’ve been thinking about faith.

There are these things in life that require you to make decisions, and you have exactly no idea how those choices are going to turn out. They are everywhere. New jobs, a new recipe, kids, a different haircut. You may have some control over the outcome, you may have none. And yet, you take these small or gigantic leaps, and then you have to wait, and, while waiting, decide how much faith you have that things are going to be ok, or great, or not.

So, see? It’s like waiting for a Polaroid picture to develop.

I never realized how many times a day, a week, a month I do this. I started to pay attention to it a while back, and, actually? It’s exhausting. Humans are exhausting.

I’ve never actually completed a NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), and I’m not sure I will this time either, but, it’s been over a year since I’ve written here – and, well, it was just time to come back in some way.

I’ve been leaving pieces of myself all over the Internet since 2005. It’s hard to remember how it all got started, but I will never forget my best friend telling me once, early on, of my Internet adventures, “It just seems like you’re searching for something.”

I didn’t understand how right she was.

I think, for many of us Internet residents of old, we were all searching for something. It’s changed a bit since 2005. It’s swung from external to internal and back again. I’ve looked for friends, connection, laughter, shared experience, notoriety, career, escape, money, story, to be heard … and, for the most part, I’ve found them all at one point or another.

I’ve written for lots of reasons here – for my kids, for others, the greater good, for therapy, for action – this time, I’m writing for me. I think I’m looking to collect all those pieces long scattered of myself. It’s time to bring them home again, the ones that fit.

It won’t be elegant and it won’t be smooth and it won’t be professional and it won’t be full of polish for Pinterest, but, at the end of the day, the pieces I find, they will be mine – and that’s good enough.

I’m looking for a pair to go over my bed, on a wall I’m about to paint navy, that will be seen from the door to the bedroom and partially in the hallway. I seem to be filtering my decision through the “I have kids” lens, which is frustrating me. (The lens, not the kids. Well, at least not today.) While I am not a prude in terms of the human body and how it is artistically represented, I do have my limits, even in a museum setting. As I told BestFriendWendy during a recent trip to Chicago, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, “That’s a lot of vagina for a Sunday morning.”

And it was.

In general I have issues with figurative paintings where faces are seen. Not so much because I feel like I’m being watched, but because I feel like a figurative painting has a “life” or “soul” and that person needs to be invited into my home. She or he is going to live there with me, so you can imagine the pressure of choosing a permanent roommate.

With nudes, I generally favor the minimalistic approach – lines, some shading, but not truly realistic. I prefer the artistic interpretation of a body in space, not a representation of the actual form. I think it’s because I still believe that a bit of mystery in revealing the body is inherently more sensual than seeing every last inch in graphic detail.

So, I’m considering these two groupings of nudes. In the first group, likely just the top and bottom right, for spacing purposes. They are very different approaches, but I still like them both for different reasons.

What’s frustrating me at the moment is the second, more colorful set. The colors are bolder, the figures more voluptuous, but the poses could be considered slightly more erotic. And here is the question:

Can I hang these in my bedroom and be okay with the kids, and likely the kids’ friends, seeing them?

I don’t know yet. I may come to the conclusion that the bold colors would eventually drive me insane day after day (I spend a great deal of time in my bedroom) and I would end up moving them to another room in the house.

I have a tendency to either under or over think things. There really is no middle ground. It’s LET’S GO! or it’s eight million details organized by category and vetted so thoroughly you can see the threads from wear.

What I haven’t done well, but I am getting better at, is “Let’s SEE.”

A lot of people bemoan mercury retrograde for its chaos and frustration and, well, okay it does do that and it’s not always great to live in, but I once read a description that changed how I look at that chaos several time a year. Instead of fighting against it, instead of trying to tie down the eight million details all now in disarray because the universe decided to pull the tablecloth off in one, messy swoop, I learned to grab the wine glass before it spills and sit back and watch it all fall.

It’s a lot less stressful that way.

I’m currently looking for a job. I’m looking for a professional home for the next several years and if ever there was a time to implement the LET’S SEE mindset, it’s this process. I have tried to fit a square peg into a round hole a LOT over the past several months. I’ve questioned my experience, my skill set, my opportunities, my sanity. There may have been a conspiracy theory woven late one night in a bubble bath. I had this list of things I wanted this position to bring to the table beyond compensation (but that had guidelines, too) that were very specific and I started to compromise on a few of them. Somewhere in the middle of this last mercury go-round an opportunity I was really excited about, but somehow not fully connected to in my heart, went sideways and I was … over it. I wanted to make that one work if only so that the process would be done. It wasn’t.

All the dishes were up in the air, a few had fallen and broken, food was splattered all over the walls, and I was about on the verge of tears because the one thing I had in my hand was running very, very low. Garcon, more wine, please.

And then, you guessed it, retrograde ended, and my inbox pinged with information that sounded ludicrous three months ago, and now I find myself fully involved in crafting an opportunity that is checking a whole lot of boxes on my “perfect opportunity” list – even if none of us really can quite define this, and we’re all smart people. I’ve decided that this lack of definition doesn’t bother me (because you can choose not to be bothered by such things), even though it should, because sometimes you just have to go with your gut and trust that the ride really is okay.

And it is. Or at least I believe it will be. I’m hanging on to my wine glass for a bit, though. I’ll either throw it against the wall or raise it up in a toast.

Real talk: I’m having one of those moments when I know I have rather sucked as a parent. Contrary to many pretty, shiny blogs out there in the parenting space, these moments happen, and I’m having one. There.

For the better part of six months I have let the kids be baby sat by electronics, fallen off the “better food” wagon, and generally chosen the easy path that led to “quiet” as opposed to “correct.” I’ve lived in my head, not theirs. There is shrapnel of awful fast foods, lack of connection, and behavioral tip-toeing. None of this is grounds for CPS, but, still, I’m bothered by it. A lot.

I rarely hold myself to other people’s supposed standards, but I do hold myself to my own, and, in this, I have failed my kids and myself as of late.

It’s okay to say that word, fail. It’s important. Because we do, as parents. We fail. The trick is we hope to only fail at the small things, the recoverable ones.

The things I’ve failed at lately, they’re a mixed bag of small and big. Some require only a small course correction – a few others will require bigger, more consistent efforts. That’s fine – it’s important work. The most important.

I decided to do something I’ve never done before. I decided to not just take my word for it this time. I decided that, if I’m going to sit down and have a big discussion with the kids about some of these things, that I am also going to ask them what they think – about these things, and about me. What am I doing right? What could I do better – or differently?

The kids are 13 and 8 now. They’re old enough to give thoughtful answers, even if some part of it might be “let me keep my phone in my room (nope)” and “let me stay up ’til 10:00 every night (nope, again). I’ve spent a year consciously changing how I deal with each kid. I’m hoping that effort pays off with a deeper level of trust or honesty when it’s really needed.

Those are hard questions to ask, and the answers may or may not be hard words to hear, but I won’t know until I ask them.

Yesterday, I had my final meeting with my neurosurgeon to take the last images of my back and make sure everything is doing exactly what it’s supposed to be doing.

And it was!

I was granted a full release from any physical restrictions that were still remaining, and then proceeded to dance with hips in full swing with my doctor who continues to think I’m very fun.

And then he asked, “Do you want to see a picture of my beaver?” and I wasn’t sure whether to applaud or pass straight out.

As it turns out, Doc has a ranch that was being terrorized by what turned out to be a 46 pound beaver. He hunted this monster through the property, properly putting a .223 bullet in it, and then continued to chase it as it, apparently, WOULD NOT DIE. The story went on through lakes and nests and, well, then there was the picture.

That was some beaver, man.

Awhile ago I had made a promise that, on the release date from surgery, I would saber a bottle of champagne and dance. It was time to fulfill the other part of that promise. I had never done it before, it was on my Life List, and I couldn’t think of a better time to swipe the head of a bottle of French champagne clean off than this.

So I did!

Here’s what I learned.

Place the chilled bottle upside down in a bucket of ice for about 1o minutes prior to sabering.

Make sure all foil is removed – and be very careful undoing the cage over the cork as it could come flying out even without help.

Find the seam of the bottle and follow it with your knife.

Use the backside of the knife, not the blade itself as it may get damaged.

Drive straight up and through the top of the bottle.

I realized I have a love of rituals and ceremony. I realized I create them for things, whether big or small. Routines happen. They are functional, necessary. But rituals and ceremony – they are the things of connection and presence. There is something about formalizing things, being thoughtful about them, being present for them that speaks to me.

Yesterday was an ending and a beginning.

194 days. From my surgery to yesterday it was 194 days. Doesn’t seem like much when I write it out like that, but, oh, what a 194 days it was. The ceremony of knocking the head off that bottle yesterday really did sign and close that chapter.

But, there’s a blank page, I still have a pen in my hand, there is more champagne ready to chill, and the flutes are ready for whatever comes next.

The kids and I were sitting around the table the other day trying to think of all the things that happened in 2014. When we started the exercise, I was really hoping they could show me some good things that happened, because the world and the news basically beat up my faith and my hope and I was weary just thinking about it all. And, because they’re kids, they did. There were bat mitzvahs and first sports and good grades and my back being fixed and new homes and new friends. There were.

I kept thinking about everything 2015 is going to bring. It will be a lot. But, for some reason, I couldn’t embrace my “word” for the year to come. My mind and my heart were blank. But, today, Karey put up something on Instagram that just about knocked the breath out of me.

And there it was. My word. The one that eluded me.

Let’s.

A lot of 2014 felt lonely. Like we were all left to fight the enormous battles of economy or faith or person or LIFE all by ourselves. In fractured space we searched desperately for people to stand with us, or yell with us, or cry with us, or just hold our hand in silence. It’s hard, that. I don’t want to do that any more. I don’t want to BE that any more.

“Let’s” is relationships. It’s invitation. It’s spontaneity. It’s negotiation, a moment to think. It’s you and I together – and I think we may need each other this year.

I’ve been gone from here for a long time. The reasons are many, and I’ll slowly unpack those and stretch some very atrophied creative muscles, but I don’t want to be gone any longer.

So, let’s.

Let’s laugh together and think together and ask questions together and cry together and get inspired together and make mistakes together and forgive together.

]]>http://www.outsidevoice.net/2015/01/02/a-word-for-2015/feed/16http://www.outsidevoice.net/2015/01/02/a-word-for-2015/On Forceful Quiethttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/outsidevoice/~3/Sm53rqOMBio/
http://www.outsidevoice.net/2014/07/16/on-forceful-quiet/#commentsWed, 16 Jul 2014 15:08:27 +0000http://www.outsidevoice.net/?p=5965
I have been under House Arrest for almost two weeks now. I am under strict instructions to do basically nothing. No lifting, no bending, no twisting. Rest. Nap. Take medicine as needed, preferably on time. Walk around a few times a day, but if you get tired, or struggle in any way, stop.

This was surprisingly difficult at first. My aftermath hasn’t been that at all. Very NOT aftermath. I had expected some level of catastrophic pain or physical difficulty. What I found was a pain level of “annoying” and the biggest complaint was the swelling and location of my abdominal incision. My back might look a bit like a war zone with multiple incision sites, but they are minor. The only thing irritating there is the steri-strips starting to come off slooooowly.

But, that said, it’s SUPER easy to rest and nap with 15mg of Vicodin plus a muscle relaxer in you. I was the valedictorian of naps.

I’ve since weaned myself off a good portion of the pain medicine, and it was the coming out of the fog that has been such an interesting lesson.

Turns out I can be quiet. I can rest. I can shut my brain off and let go of all the “should be doings” and “need to be doings” and not feel guilty about taking time to do what I need to do. Of course, I can do these things because I have an amazing family and friend support system who is helping me do that, but I have to allow that to happen.

And I did. I am. That is a milestone.

I like the quiet. I like the lack of chaos. It’s what I will cultivate going forward. I’ve discovered a few other things as well. The biggest one, not surprisingly, is that my kids like it, too. Leah is helping more in the kitchen, and not really complaining about it. Benjamin is helping more also – and happy to do it. Because of how the past two weeks ended up schedule-wise, I got to spend a lot of time with them in the hospital and at home. Leah likes to check on the plants outside with me – and water when needed. Benjamin likes having more reading time at night. There have been ENDLESS Legos put together. There are more hugs and kisses and thank yous and “you’re awesomes” and snuggles in THEIR beds and LOTS more talking about their day and it feels nice.

There are these birds that love the patio my bedroom and living room look out on. Every day I watch different sets of them fly up and down from the gutter, where a nest has been built, to the stone. They hop around, sit on the patio furniture in dire need of some spray paint, and try desperately to figure out how to get in the french doors. It’s charming. Another set of blue jays lives in my backyard bushes and spends a good deal of time investigating the grass, the new flowers, and the 50+ year old tree my dad planted. The back yard is starting to take shape and all this nature that is coming to discover our work is soothing in a way. I’m even making sure the bird bath is properly outfitted. It’s summer here in Houston and I want to be a good host to the bird friends.

I have a list of things I need and want to do, but I’m working on not rushing to do all of them immediately. I have one shot to heal, and heal correctly, and I’m taking it. But, as things progress, I’m starting to prioritize the list. There are big things and little things and things that can be done on the Internet. There are short term things and long term things and easy things and hard things, but, right now, the first thing is to get back into the kitchen.